Most Americans approve of President-elect Donald Trump’s handling of his return to the White House, a new poll shows.
According to the CNN poll conducted by SSRS, 55 percent of respondents approve of how Trump is handling the transition so far.
This marks an improvement from 2016 when Trump was preparing for his first term in office when 46 percent approved. By comparison, 66 percent of survey participants approved of how President Joe Biden handled his transition to the White House in January 2021.
The poll was conducted Dec. 5 to 8 among a random national sample of 1,011 U.S. adults. The survey has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.
Nearly seven in 10 respondents believe that Trump will be able to bring change to the country, the poll shows. Only half, however, think that it will change for the better.
Fifty-four percent of Americans expect Trump to do a good job once he officially returns to the Oval Office. By comparison, 61 percent said the same of Biden in January 2021.
The new data comes as the president-elect continues to pick his second-term team for top positions in his Cabinet and White House staff. The incoming Senate majority gives Trump more leeway to select individuals who require confirmation by the upper chamber.
Republicans have also kept control of the House of Representatives, securing a GOP trifecta.
Trump decisively defeated Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, who had three months to campaign after replacing Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket. Harris is expected to oversee Congress’ ceremonial certification of the election as the current sitting vice president.
In his victory speech, Trump declared that Americans gave him “an unprecedented and powerful mandate.”
Trump has outlined his priorities for Day One of his presidency, which includes implementing the largest deportation of illegal immigrants in U.S. history.
The president-elect also promised to bring down inflation by increasing oil and gas drilling and rolling back clean energy regulations, often touting the term “drill, baby, drill” on the campaign trail. The new poll shows that nearly 40 percent of respondents have confidence in Trump handling the economy and immigration policy.
Trump has also criticized the amount of aid that the Biden administration has sent to Ukraine and repeatedly vowed to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict even before he takes office. Thirty-seven percent also have a lot of confidence in his ability to handle the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Trump’s inauguration day is set for Jan. 20, 2025.